Tony makes a peace sign in every photo taken of him because he never got to take a picture with the soldier that made one.
No one questions it. They accept it because Tony Stark is Tony Stark and he can do whatever the hell it is he wants with minimal questioning and even less understanding. They've long ago given up on trying to understand, so they just presume and say and Tony is more or less okay with it.
He's never cared much anyway.
Some make speculations, of course. It wouldn't be real life if they didn't.
It's because he's turned a new leaf. He fights to make peace possible throughout the world. He stopped his weapons program because you can't have peace when you're pointing your highly dangerous, highly lethal weapons right at their front door. It's just a stand-still then, and Tony just hates the tension.
Others say he's a fraud. A hypocritical, filthy liar that's only trying to get the world to let him keep his suit because he's selfish and just-can't-share and throw up that peace sign, you fucker, you're really fooling them now.
Really, they're all true. All one hundred percent true and Tony's never going to contradict them because what's the point? He's turned over a new leaf, right? And lying would just be a kick in the wrong direction.
(The thing is, no matter which way he kicks, they're always going to move the goal and Tony's really just making a fool of himself, and the whole world is just kicking their feet up and laughing at his disgrace.)
But… Those aren't the reasons. Not then, and never now, but Tony just gives them a cocky smirk and hides behind his dark-tinted glasses.
Tony does it for the man- boy, really, as he couldn't have been any older than twenty one- that sat next to him in that Humvee that was doomed the moment he stepped foot in it. He does it because that picture, insignificant at the time and honestly, honestly, Tony's always been a little annoyed with the whole having to take pictures with you because you just so happen to be richer than the rest of them.
So yeah, it was insignificant, Tony was a little annoyed but, hey, suck it up buttercup, and the rest of them couldn't have worn bigger grins.
And, maybe, just maybe, that kind of warmed the spot in his chest where his heart was supposed to be.
(Given him a minute and it could've, would've, should've, but never-ever did turn just the slightest bit real.)
So, yes and no, Tony does do it for himself.
But, mostly, he does it for the boy and the soldiers he never learned the name of, and he does it for Yinsen too because Yinsen deserved it, and even Rhodey, and definitely Pepper, and sometimes in the dead of night when he's sitting in his workshop with an almost empty bottle of scotch he'll do it for Stane and Maria and even Howard because he'll always be standing in their shadows, and he even starts to do it for the team, and, fuck, might as well add Fury and Hill to that list while he's at it.
(He's trying to tell them, I've changed. Please, please, you've got to see that. I won't go back. I swear, I'll never go back and all you have to do is just believe me, for once in my fucking life, someone just trust me.)
Tony throws up that peace sign as far as his arm will reach and smiles for those bright flashes of light with men and women of hungry eyes and deprived souls that'll never let the past lie wield them.
He gives them their little bit of meat and they take it greedily and tell stories that'll never really be true but yet always have been, and Tony sits back and reads the headlines and smiles.
He smiles and supports his head with one hand, index and middle finger splayed on his temple and the others supporting his jaw and cheekbone. He gives a smile he could've, would've, should've but never ever did give that soldier, sprayed with bullets in front of his very eyes, and gives a silent peace sign and thinks maybe, maybe he'll get to the day when he can claw past the guilt situated firmly near the arc reactor and just actually give it peace.
(But Tony is and always will be the Merchant of Death, and he will never give anyone reason to believe that the greatest mass murder in the history of the world is looking for peace. You can't just hide behind a suit of armor and pretend that.)
So Tony settles down and makes himself comfortable with a bottle of scotch because it'll be a long, long time before he even reaches half-way and practices for the camera till the only one who could possibly see the depravity of it all is him.
(The kicker? He's never even had to try.)